


moment's silence

by jostxnneil



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Pidge is mentioned briefly and talks on the comms, Red Paladin Lance (Voltron), enjoy, hm, i think that's good, probably procrastination, tbh idk what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 14:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18640252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jostxnneil/pseuds/jostxnneil
Summary: Keith and Lance have the worst luck on missions together. This just proves it.OR, Lance and Keith get stranded on a Galra warship, and the life-or-death situation provides the perfect opportunity for them to finally confront those feelings they've been ignoring.





	moment's silence

**Author's Note:**

> tbh the title has nothing to do with the actual fic, i just listened to hozier's new album when i started writing it lmao. i'm supposed to be studying for finals or sleeping or smthn but instead i wrote this! hopefully someone appreciates this product of my chronic procrastination.

Lance is mad at God.

He has been for a while, if he’s honest, but it was never quite like this burning, righteous rage that makes his throat feel thick with tears and bitten-back screams.

But oh, he’s _angry_ now, because he’s trapped in a supply closet on a Galran warship with Keith pressed against him thigh to thigh, and they’re both going to die here.

They’re both exhausted, red-faced, and drenched in sweat. Neither of them have quite been able to catch their breath, even though they’ve been sitting here for nearly ten minutes now, and maybe that’s because they’re still trying their best to stifle every sound they make, trying to avoid being found again.

Every inch of Lance’s body hurts. His arms tremble of their own accord every few seconds as though he’s got the shivers, even though the room feels near suffocating with their body heat, because the muscles are so worn out from holding his rifle.

Keith isn’t doing much better. There’s a cut high on his cheek, still bleeding sluggishly, and even though between the two of them he’s usually the hyperaware one always on alert, he’s slumped bonelessly against the wall with his eyes closed, head tilted back.

His mouth is parted as he breathes, pink and damp and tempting, and Lance desperately wishes for more time.

“This sucks,” he says quietly. Keith’s eyes don’t open, but he jerks his head in a nod and doesn’t scold Lance for talking, so he decides that he’s in the clear to try for a conversation. The silence is nearly as suffocating as the thick air of the small closet they’re in. “We have the worst luck on missions together.”

Keith’s eyes flicker open at that and fix on Lance’s face. He takes a few beats to speak. “Not always.”

“Most of the time, dude,” Lance says. “Enough of the time.”

They’ve had this argument before, sort of.

Lance sighs, tilting his head to look up at the ceiling. Sweat drips down the back of his neck.

“How long do you think it’ll take them to find us?” he asks, still staring at the ceiling. If he stares hard enough, the purple-tinted light almost seems to flicker like the fluorescents back home.

Keith shrugs.

Lance tilts his head back down to stare at him. He’s being quieter than usual—and he gets it, he knows that they’re exhausted and this is an awful situation, but Keith isn’t the type to get fatalistic. He doesn’t give up until he’s unconscious or dead.

Or until the battle is won.

But there’s—something somber about his expression, like maybe he’s counted their odds and come up short the same way Lance has done about a hundred times since this stupid ship wormholed as soon as they were on it like it was planned and cut them off from their team.

It was a stealth mission, originally. But stealth doesn’t last long when you’re two color-coded paladins on a warship with no escape route.

They tried the hangar first, hoping they’d be able to find a pod they could highjack. That’s how they’d gotten caught, and once the soldiers knew they were there they hadn’t hesitated to destroy every single one of their own escape pods just to ensure that the two of them had no way off the ship.

Well, besides the airlock. But even with their armor, Lance and Keith both know they wouldn’t last long floating in space, and if the soldiers noticed they were there they’d just pull them both back in. Or fire at them.

Neither is a desirable outcome.

So here they are.

Lance knocks his leg against Keith’s. “Hey.”

Keith, instead of glaring or snapping at him, gently nudges back. “Hey,” he says.

He sounds—well, he sounds like Lance feels, mostly.

World-weary.

“We’re so stupid,” Lance murmurs.

“The mission going wrong wasn’t our fault,” Keith replies.

Lance looks at the ceiling again. “I wasn’t talking about the mission.”

Keith doesn’t answer, but after another beat of that heavy silence, his armor clicks as he shifts, and then his hand is worming its way into Lance’s.

Lance isn’t really surprised.

He closes his eyes, focusing on the feeling of the cool metal against the back of his head.

“You have the worst timing,” he whispers. Keith squeezes his hand in response.

……………………..

“Why is it,” Lance says, “that the bad guys always seem to have conveniently human-sized air ducts?”

“Lucky for us they do, dude, or we’d still be trapped in that supply closet,” Keith replies.

“Don’t ‘dude’ me,” Lance mutters, mostly to himself. “I held your hand in a closet. We’re way past dude territory.”

“Okay, _babe,_ how about you hurry it up and crawl faster?” Keith says, and despite the sarcastic bite to his words Lance can’t help but pause at the pet name.

“You’re such an asshole,” he finally says, and crawls faster.

“Yeah, yeah. You can tell the others all about it when we get back.”

…………………….

“Okay, but is it just, like, poor planning? Or is it meant as a trap? Like, ‘oh, look at this, we’ve made our air ducts the _perfect_ size for intruders to crawl around in, what an inconvenient accident,’” Lance rambles. “Like, you’ve gotta admit that it’s a little weird, dude.”

“’ _Dude,’”_ Keith mutters, scathing, and Lance rolls his eyes despite knowing that Keith can’t see him.

“Okay, I get your point, I’m so sorry, _sweetheart.”_ He continues doing his best to pry up the vent with the edge of Keith’s knife. “Still, though. Have you ever actually seen ventilation plans that are so convenient for someone’s enemies? They have openings in every room that’d be relevant to us. How is that not weird?”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“Yeah, but you implied it.”

“Can you just open the fucking vent?”

“Why, am I annoying you? Tiring of my company already? Sucks to be you, since in or out of this air duct we’re still stuck alone together on a Galra warship in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“What does he have to do with any of this?”

Keith groans, but before he can say anything properly scoffing in response, Lance exclaims triumphantly as the edge of the vent finally comes loose, sliding Keith’s knife back to him and carefully lifting the vent up and to the side.

He squints into the relative darkness of the hall below, trying to gauge the distance to the ground. It doesn’t look too far, but then again, human bodies have terrible durability predictability. Better to just go for it.

After careful maneuvering involving several muttered curses as he smacks his arms and legs against the sides of the air shaft, Lance manages to get his legs in front of him and slowly dangles them down through the vent.

He looks back at Keith, mock serious. “If I die, know that I blame it entirely on you.”

“Do you need me to push you?” Keith asks, unimpressed by his melodramatics. “Because I will.”

“Where’s your sense of humor, Keith?” Lance says. “Or do you even have one?”

“Shiro took it with him on the Kerberos mission and never bothered to give it back,” Keith answers, deadpan.

Lance laughs as he jumps.

The impact sends pain lancing through his knees, but it fades away after a few seconds and he straightens up, stepping forward to leave the way clear for Keith as he watches the end of the hallway for any sentries.

Keith’s impact is softer than his, somehow, despite the fact that Lance is only a few inches taller than him.

“This is a terrible place to die,” Lance complains, wrinkling his nose at the gunmetal gray walls and floor and ceiling and faintly glowing purple lighting.

“Good thing we’re not going to die here,” Keith replies, stepping around him to take the lead. “The hangar should be this way.”

“You mean, that place where we got caught by a bunch of soldiers who decided to destroy all of their escape pods, making it completely useless to us?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Gonna offer an explanation, or…?”

“They won’t expect us to go back there.”

Lance sighs. “I forget sometimes that you’re actually capable of making logical plans instead of just jumping in headfirst.”

Keith shoots him a look.

Footsteps echo in the distance, and Lance immediately has his rifle up and ready—just in time, as a group of sentries rounds the corner and spots them.

He’s about to tell Keith to get behind him, but as soon as he opens his mouth to say the words, Keith is already leaping into action, sword flashing.

Lance has just enough time to mutter a curse to himself, and then he’s too busy shooting sentries down and keeping Keith from getting killed to think about anything else.

…………………

Unfortunately for them, what was a small group of sentries multiplies as more of them send off distress signals, and Lance can feel the exhaustion he’d been trying to ignore start dragging at his limbs. His reaction time suffers for it—a shot that would’ve been a headshot in normal circumstances turns into a shoulder shot that the droid barely even registers when he’s a touch too slow in pulling the trigger, and he bites down on the inside of his cheek _hard_ to try and wake himself up a bit.

He doesn’t have room for error, not here. Not with Keith in the line of fire.

Sweat drips into his eyes, and he blinks it away, ignoring the way it stings. Keith takes a hit to the shoulder and cries out; Lance steps forward and fires five shots in quick succession to take out all of the droids nearest to him.

He _focuses._ Maybe it’s the exhaustion, or the high stakes, or the blood that he can see dripping on the white of Keith’s armor, but his vision tunnels and suddenly all he can hear is his breathing and the blood rushing in his ears, and, distantly, the clash of metal on metal as Keith takes out more sentries.

As long as he keeps them off of Keith, he doesn’t mind it. As long as Keith is okay, everything is fine.

The numbers are finally starting to thin. Lance allows himself one quick breath of relief—and then several things happen at once.

Keith finishes off the last droid and looks at him, lips curled in a smug smirk—and his eyes widen in alarm.

Lance feels awareness prickle along the back of his neck and starts to turn around.

And the Galran soldier standing behind him shoots him point-blank in the stomach.

……………………

He feels the impact first. At such close-range, it’s enough to knock him stumbling back and crush the breath from his lungs, blackening the edges of his vision. He raises his rifle on instinct, firing off a shot that he’s not entirely sure lands.

And then the pain hits, and he hunches in on himself, curling around his stomach as though that’ll make it hurt less, breathing in short gasps that don’t help his fading vision.

His hearing comes back as a high-pitched ringing first, and then he registers Keith’s voice, frantically saying his name over and over, and his hand on his arm, and he manages to look up and find his eyes, surprisingly close.

“I’m fine,” he gasps out. “It’s fine, I’m fine—we have to go, Keith. We have to go.”

Keith’s face is almost as white as his armor, and as the pain dulls to something vaguely manageable Lance realizes that Keith’s hands are on his arms, holding him upright, and that Keith’s bayard is on the ground next to them, presumably where he’d dropped it.

“Lance,” Keith starts, and then seems to think better of what he was going to say. “C’mon, you can lean on me. The hangar isn’t far.”

“Think we’ve got bigger problems,” Lance murmurs, but his legs are starting to feel more and more unstable underneath him, so he lets Keith pull his arm around his shoulders without complaint. “The soldier?”

“You got him,” Keith says, strangely strangled. Lance wonders if it’s because he hadn’t gotten to kill the soldier himself, or if it’s something else.

“There’ll be more,” Lance mumbles, and Keith nods, mouth set in a grim line.

The hangar is two halls over from their air duct exit, and exactly as Keith had guessed, it’s entirely empty of soldiers and sentries.

Lance almost wants to laugh at the irony of it. They’d been so close to a safe place to wait things out until the others could lock onto their location.

Keith helps him to the nearest pile of crates and positions them so that they’re not visible to anyone in the hall.

As soon as they stop moving, Lance is sinking to the floor, breathing hard, and instead of letting go of him Keith follows him down, crouching in front of him and pressing a hand over his where he has it held to his abdomen.

Lance squeezes his eyes shut against the pain and then opens them again.

The worried frown and furrow between Keith’s eyebrows would be cute in different circumstances.

“I told you,” he rasps, summoning a half-grin to his face. Keith looks up at him, confusion mixing with worry. “We have the _worst_ luck.”

Keith laughs—a sharp, hysterical sound, and then he shakes his head and leans forward until their heads knock together. “You’re calling it bad luck? If you watched your own back half as well as you watch everyone else’s—”

“Aww,” Lance interrupts. “Are you worried about me, samurai?”

“Fucking asshole,” Keith mutters. “Of course I am.”

Lance hums contentedly at the response, letting his eyes fall closed. He focuses on where Keith’s hand is on his, where their foreheads press together. Keith is close enough that Lance can feel the warmth radiating from him.

“If we get out of this, sweetheart,” Lance says softly, eyes still closed, “I want you to kiss me.”

Keith makes a distressed noise in the back of his throat, and Lance starts to move away, but Keith shifts and suddenly Lance’s free hand is occupied.

“We will,” he promises, breathless, and Lance opens his eyes to find him already looking, inches away and fierce as ever.

He smiles, small and soft. “Does that mean you want to kiss me?”

Keith laughs, the sound nearly a sob, and lifts their clasped hands to press the back of Lance’s hand to his brow. “You already know the answer to that.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t like to hear it out loud,” Lance murmurs, letting his head fall back against the crate he’s leaning against.

“Yes, Lance,” Keith says, pressing a soft kiss against Lance’s knuckles and then shifting to lean against the crate next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “I want to kiss you.”

…………………

Lance finds himself grateful that he was knocked unconscious when he was caught in the explosion back on Arus. He wasn’t aware enough to remember much of it, or to be in much pain.

But now—he’s awake for every excruciating second of it.

The worst thing is, he doesn’t even really have anything left in him to fight against it. He can feel the blood pooling underneath him, feel the last of whatever energy he had left steadily draining away, and even the last of the adrenaline isn’t enough to beat back the exhaustion turning everything blurry at the edges.

His strength fails him, and Keith has to clamp down harder as Lance’s hand starts to fall away from his wound, starting forward with a noise of alarm.

“Hey, no,” he says, and Lance opens his eyes to look at him. “You have to keep pressure there, okay?”

Lance smiles tiredly. “How ‘bout you do it for me, samurai? ‘m just a bit—tired.”

“Fuck, I know,” Keith says, voice shaky. “I know, Lance. I’m sorry.”

Lance tilts his head until it falls against Keith’s shoulder, closing his eyes again. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Red.”

Keith makes a sound strangely like a muffled sob, and then he drops Lance’s free hand to snake his arm around Lance’s shoulders, pulling him forward.

Lance bites back a groan as his wound is jostled, but Keith is quick and careful about rearranging them, and at the end of it Lance can’t find it in himself to complain, with his head tilted back on Keith’s shoulder, back pressed to Keith’s chest, and Keith’s arms around him, one hand still pressing firmly on his bleeding stomach.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, cheek pressed against Lance’s hair. “I’ve got you.”

…………………

It’s only a matter of time before the soldiers decide to check the hangar. Lance hears the doors slide open, and the clattering of the robotic sentries alongside the heavier footsteps of the soldiers as they step inside.

Keith’s grip tightens, and Lance turns his head into his neck. He tries to stay quiet, but his breathing is labored, chest shuddering on every inhale.

“You should go,” he breathes, and he can feel Keith gritting his teeth.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he breathes back, and Lance aches.

They listen as the footsteps get closer to their hiding spot, and at some point Lance stops being able to open his eyes.

“Lance,” Keith says, voice breaking. “Stay awake.”

“Wish I could,” Lance replies. “Don’t—think I have much of a—choice.”

“You’re not going to die, asshole,” Keith says, voice strained. His hands are shaking.

“Hmm,” Lance tries. “Sucks. That I won’t get to—kiss you.”

Keith somehow manages to pull him even closer. Lance’s nose brushes the edge of his jaw.

“So stay,” Keith whispers.

Lance can’t find the energy to say anything back, even if he knew how to respond.

The soldiers are feet away from their hiding place, their robotic chatter grating in Lance’s ears, and Lance is starting to stop feeling much of anything at all—and the world shakes around them.

He can’t quite stifle a cry of pain as the ship lurches—apparently he’s not quite as numb as he thought—and then he hears a distant, familiar roar.

“Red,” he mumbles—or tries to. The garbled sound he manages isn’t much of a word. There’s warmth in the back of his mind as she floods through the bond, and he feels every bit of her worry. He catches a flash through her eyes of her claws tearing through the metal exterior of the ship, and then the damaged helmet that Keith still has hooked to his belt crackles to life.

_“Keith, Lance, are you there? Can you guys hear us?”_ Pidge says, and if he had the energy Lance would cry tears of relief.

Keith pulls away just enough to scramble for his belt, shoving the helmet onto his head one-handed. “We’re here, Pidge—Lance is hurt.”

_“Which part of the ship are you in?”_

“The hangar. Pidge—” Keith’s voice cracks again. “Please hurry.”

He discards the helmet again as Pidge confirms acknowledgement, letting it clatter to the floor, heedless of the sentries and soldiers that could still be nearby, wrapping his arm back around Lance’s chest.

“They’re here, see?” he says. “Okay, they’re here. You’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine.”

Lance, very aware of the sticky pool of blood underneath him, soaking his and Keith’s armor, has his doubts. Red’s urgency at the back of his mind doesn’t do much to reassure him.

But he hums, trying to comfort Keith, and summons whatever last bits of energy he has to barely squeeze his fingers around Keith’s.

“You—owe me—a kiss,” he breathes, and then his chest seizes and his vision goes white behind his closed eyelids.

Distantly, he can hear Keith shouting. Feel himself being moved.

But shadows quickly follow the burst of whiteness, and he doesn’t have any energy left to struggle against them as they drag him down.

…………………

Lance comes into awareness at the sound of a muffled beep, and then he’s falling forward, exhaustion and disorientation making him clumsy and uncoordinated.

Familiar arms catch him, strong and warm, and he struggles to open his eyes as Keith starts peppering kisses over his face, chanting his name over and over.

“Keith,” he says, voice a hoarse rasp, and struggles to get his unsteady feet to support his weight, blinking his eyes open. “Keith, hey. I’m okay. I’m here.”

Because Keith is crying even as he pulls Lance against him, eyes red, cheeks puffy. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week, and for all Lance knows, maybe he hasn’t.

He pulls back just enough to press his forehead against Lance’s, breathing hard, and Lance wraps his arms around him, holding on as tightly as he can with his limbs still weak from the healing pod.

“That fucking _sucked,”_ Keith says, voice hitching on a sob, and Lance can’t help but laugh.

“God,” he says. “You really know how to charm a guy, don’t you?”

They pull apart just enough for Keith to help him over to one of the cots so that he can sit down, still exhausted, and he looks around, wondering where the others are.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Keith explains. “Everyone else is still asleep. We didn’t think you’d be out until tomorrow morning.”

“And you?” Lance asks.

Keith bites his lip, shrugging. “I haven’t really left.”

“Mmm,” Lance hums. Now that he’s sitting, sleep is starting to sound more and more appealing. But before he gives into the exhaustion… “I seem to recall that you owe me a kiss.”

Keith laughs—a quick, startled sound. “What, earlier wasn’t enough for you?”

“A _real_ kiss,” Lance insists, even as Keith pushes him to lay down and crawls onto the cot next to him. “A promise is a promise, sweetheart. Pay up.”

“I can’t believe I cried over you,” Keith says, voice rough. “You’re such a pain in the ass.”

“Only if you want me to be, babe,” Lance replies, with a cheeky grin.

“Fucking,” Keith mutters. “Asshole.”

“You love me,” Lance says, softly.

Keith reaches over him to lace their fingers together, raising their hands to kiss Lance’s knuckles the same way he had in the Galran hangar. “Maybe a little.”

Lance smiles, drunk on whatever this is between them. He feels like he’s floating in zero gravity, and Keith’s hand is keeping him tethered. “I love you too.”

Keith’s other hand cards through Lance’s hair, and Lance holds onto his smile, unwilling to let the moment fade away.

The edges of sleep, fuzzy and pleasant, are just starting to creep up on him when Keith leans over and presses a soft, lingering kiss to his mouth.

He starts to pull away and Lance chases after him, stealing a second kiss—and then a third, and a fourth, until Keith finally breaks away with a muffled laugh.

“You need to rest, Lance,” he says, and Lance tugs on their clasped hands.

“This is better.”

“Go to sleep, dickhead.”

“Oh, that’s a new one. Is that better or worse than ‘asshole’?”

Keith groans, dropping his weight on top of Lance. “Why are you like this?”

“You’d get bored otherwise,” Lance replies. “Okay, I’ll sleep—but only if you promise to kiss me again when I wake up.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, it’s a yes. Now go to _sleep._ ”

Lance falls asleep smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you wanna request something, hmu on tumblr @cryptydmatt 
> 
> you'll make me happier than u will ever know if you leave comments and kudos.


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